Chasing Time
by BrittT
Summary: Edward Cullen is a time traveler, born in 1901, visiting present-day Forks, WA. Bella Swan is a bored 17-yr-old high school student. Sparks ignite when they meet. Will he stay and make a life with Bella, or return to his family in 2101? AU/AT


_**These are Stephenie Meyer's characters. I am just using them for a bit.**_

_**Edward POV:**_

I got so sick when I traveled. It was never easy to go from one era to another, from one lifetime to the next. My body always took a day to adjust.

I opened my eyes and tried to adjust to the darkness surrounding me. It was twilight, but I had landed in the middle of a dense forest, which obscured any daylight still present. The trees were thick with mold and heavy with a recent rain. If I had any hope of orienting myself, I had to get out of here and into a clearing.

Then, I heard a car pass by. I must be near a road of some kind. Brilliant. I could follow the sound out of this muck. Hopefully I was near a town as well. I tried to map my coordinates as close as I could to the town of Forks, but with any change in atmosphere or timeline, my trajectory would be altered. Usually, as in this case, it was only slightly affected.

I heard another car pass, this time the sound was louder. I must be getting close. The forest floor was so soaked with rain, my shoes squished against the leaves. Fortunately, I had sense enough to wear my waterproof shoes from the 22nd Century -- absolutely, positively sealed against all elements, still allowing the foot to breathe. I tried not to wear anything that would be an anachronism, but in my studies of Washington State, and this town of Forks in particular, I knew that the weather would be unbearable, so I took a risk in packing the shoes. I had enough to deal with without having to wring out my socks every hour.

I emerged from the dense thicket and approached the road. I looked around. It seemed I was a ways away from town. All I could see were trees lining both sides of the road.

Maybe I could hitch a ride with someone. I tried to flag down the next pair of traveling headlights…

_**Bella's POV:**_

"I thought you'd have a good time, Bells," Charlie said, his eyes fixed on the dark road ahead.

"No, you didn't, Dad," I replied, staring out the window at the trees flying by.

My father had decided that I needed to attend the fall dance. He talked me into going with Jessica and Angela, hoping that somehow I would undergo a personality change on the way there, transforming myself into the belle of the ball. Sadly, he was mistaken.

I spent the better part of the night hanging out by the punch bowl, looking bored. An assortment of guys had asked me to dance – Mike Newton, Eric Yorkie, and Tyler Crowley among them. They were all OK as friends, but no one really interested me. Ever since I moved to Forks a months ago, I seemed to have swarms of guys watching my every move. Frankly, it freaked me out at times. I'd never encountered that in Phoenix. It was just the opposite in fact.

Besides, I wasn't really looking at rushing in to love. Looking at my father, I thought of my parents' history. They had fallen in love in high school, marrying soon after graduation. I followed along within a year of the wedding. I was a baby when my mother decided that small town life was not the life for her, and we fled to the sunshine of Phoenix. The polar opposite of Forks.

I moved back because she had now remarried, and her new husband wanted her with him on the road. He was a professional baseball player, and knew that life on the road, being apart more than they were together, would strain even the strongest of marriages. I, however, couldn't be moved around that much, with school and everything. So I volunteered to go live with Charlie and finish school here while they were free to do as they wanted. I mean, how could I really say no?

My father was worried that I would be lonely here, and constantly pushed me to mingle. I wasn't the least bit interested in "mingling". I was interested mainly in staying in my room and reading, or listening to my music collection. To call it a "collection" was an overstatement, but my computer was too woefully slow to do any sort of downloading, and there wasn't a good music store in Forks. However, it suited my needs just fine.

It had been the last thing that I had wanted to do tonight, but it did offer a break from the routine. For that, I was thankful. Forks was starting to feel like a broken record. School, come home, cook for Charlie, homework, bed. Rinse with fresh rain and repeat.

Suddenly, I look out the windshield and saw a figure emerge from the forest. It stepped into the road, becoming a pale figure in the light of the oncoming headlights. It stood literally in the road, showing no signs of wavering.

"Dad! STOP!" I cried.


End file.
